Moby Dick: or, the White Whale eBook

Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself
a right good workmanlike workman, eh? Well,
then, will it speak thoroughly well for thy work,
if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall
nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical
place with it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg;
the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not
drive that old Adam away?

Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now.
Yes, I have heard something curious on that score,
sir; how that a dismasted man never entirely loses
the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still
pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it
be really so, sir?

It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the
place where mine once was; so, now, here is only one
distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul.
Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there,
there to a hair, do I. Is’t a riddle?

I should humbly call it a poser, sir.

Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire,
living, thinking thing may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly
standing precisely where thou now standest; aye, and
standing there in thy spite? In thy most solitary
hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers?
Hold, don’t speak! And if I still feel
the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now so long
dissolved; then, why mayest not thou, carpenter, feel
the fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body?
Hah!

Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that,
I must calculate over again; I think I didn’t
carry a small figure, sir.

Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.—­How
long before this leg is done?

Perhaps an hour, sir.

Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns
to go). Oh, Life. Here I am, proud as Greek
god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for
a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness
which will not do away with ledgers. I would
be free as air; and I’m down in the whole world’s
books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for
bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction
of the Roman empire (which was the world’s);
and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with.
By heavens! I’ll get a crucible, and into
it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious
vertebra. So.

Carpenter ( resuming his work).

Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all,
and Stubb always says he’s queer; says nothing
but that one sufficient little word queer; he’s
queer, says Stubb; he’s queer—­queer,
queer; and keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all
the time—­queer—­sir—­queer,
queer, very queer. And here’s his leg.
Yes, now that I think of it, here’s his bed-fellow!
has a stick of whale’s jaw-bone for a wife!
And this is his leg; he’ll stand on this.
What was that now about one leg standing in three
places, and all three places standing in one hell—­
how was that? Oh! I don’t wonder